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Like all Marines, Oswald was trained and tested in shooting and he scored 212 in December 1956, slightly above the requirements for the designation of sharpshooter. In May 1959 he scored 191, which reduced his rating to marksman.
Oswald was court-martialed after accidentally shooting himself in the elbow with an unauthorized .22 handgun, then court-martialed again for fighting with a sergeant whom he thought was responsible for his punishment in the shooting matter. He was demoted from private first class to private and briefly imprisoned in the brig. He was later punished for a third incident: while on night-time sentry duty in the Philippines, he inexplicably fired his rifle into the jungle.
Slightly built, Oswald was nicknamed Ozzie Rabbit after the cartoon character; he was also called Oswaldskovich because he espoused pro-Soviet sentiments. In November 1958, Oswald transferred back to El Toro where his unit's function "was to serveil [sic] for aircraft, but basically to train both enlisted men and officers for later assignment overseas." An officer there said that Oswald was a "very competent" crew chief and was "brighter than most people."
While in the Marines, Oswald made an effort to teach himself rudimentary Russian. Although this was an unusual endeavor, in February 1959, he was invited to take a Marine proficiency exam in written and spoken Russian. His level at the time was rated "poor." On September 11, 1959, he received a hardship discharge from active service, claiming his mother needed care, and was put on reserve.
Adult life and early crimes
Defection to the Soviet Union
In October 1959, just before turning 20, Oswald traveled to the Soviet Union, a trip he planned well in advance. Along with his self-taught Russian, he had saved $1,500 of his Marine Corps salary. Oswald spent two days with his mother in Fort Worth, then embarked by ship from New Orleans on September 20 to Le Havre, France, and immediately proceeded to the United Kingdom. Arriving in Southampton on October 9, he told officials he had $700 and planned to remain in the United Kingdom for one week before proceeding to a school in Switzerland. However, on the same day, he flew to Helsinki, where he was issued a Soviet visa on October 14. Oswald left Helsinki by train on the following day, crossed the Soviet border at Vainikkala, and arrived in Moscow on October 16. His visa, valid only for a week, was due to expire on October 21.
Almost immediately after arriving, Oswald told his Intourist guide of his desire to become a Soviet citizen. When asked why by the various Soviet officials he encountered—all of whom, by Oswald's account, found his wish incomprehensible—he said that he was a communist, and gave what he described in his diary as "vauge answers about 'Great Soviet Union'". On October 21, the day his visa was due to expire, he was told that his citizenship application had been refused, and that he had to leave the Soviet Union that evening. Distraught, Oswald inflicted a minor but bloody wound to his left wrist in his hotel room bathtub soon before his Intourist guide was due to arrive to escort him from the country, according to his diary because he wished to kill himself in a way that would shock her. Delaying Oswald's departure because of his self-inflicted injury, the Soviets kept him in a Moscow hospital under psychiatric observation until October 28, 1959.
According to Oswald, he met with four more Soviet officials that same day, who asked if he wanted to return to the United States; he insisted to them that he wanted to live in the Soviet Union as a Soviet national. When pressed for identification papers, he provided his Marine Corps discharge papers.
On October 31, Oswald appeared at the United States embassy in Moscow, declaring a desire to renounce his U.S. citizenship. "I have made up my mind," he said; "I'm through." He told the U.S. embassy interviewing officer, Richard Edward Snyder, that " he had been a radar operator in the Marine Corps and that he had voluntarily stated to unnamed Soviet officials that as a Soviet citizen he would make known to them such information concerning the Marine Corps and his specialty as he possessed. He intimated that he might know something of special interest." (Such statements led to Oswald's hardship/honorable military reserve discharge being changed to undesirable.) The Associated Press story of the defection of a former U.S. Marine to the Soviet Union was reported on the front pages of some newspapers in 1959.
Though Oswald had wanted to attend Moscow State University, he was sent to Minsk to work as a lathe operator at the Gorizont Electronics Factory, which produced radios, televisions, and military and space electronics. Stanislau Shushkevich, who later became independent Belarus's first head of state, was also engaged by Gorizont at the time, and was assigned to teach Oswald Russian. Oswald received a government-subsidized, fully furnished studio apartment in a prestigious building and an additional supplement to his factory pay—all in all, an idyllic existence by working-class Soviet standards, though he was kept under constant surveillance.
Oswald grew bored in Minsk. He wrote in his diary in January 1961: "I am starting to reconsider my desire about staying. The work is drab, the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No nightclubs or bowling alleys, no places of recreation except the trade union dances. I have had enough." Shortly afterwards, Oswald (who had never formally renounced his U.S. citizenship) wrote to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow requesting return of his American passport, and proposing to return to the U.S. if any charges against him would be dropped.
In March 1961, Oswald met Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova, a 19-year-old pharmacology student; they married less than six weeks later in April. The Oswalds' first child, June, was born on February 15, 1962. On May 24, 1962, Oswald and Marina applied at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for documents enabling her to immigrate to the U.S. and, on June 1, the U.S. Embassy gave Oswald a repatriation loan of $435.71. Oswald, Marina, and their infant daughter left for the United States, where they received no attention from the press, much to Oswald's disappointment.
Dallas-Fort Worth
The Oswalds soon settled in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where Lee's mother and brother lived. Lee began a manuscript on Soviet life, though he eventually gave up the project. The Oswalds also became acquainted with a number of anti-Communist Russian and East European émigrés in the area. In testimony to the Warren Commission, Alexander Kleinlerer said that the Russian émigrés sympathized with Marina, while merely tolerating Oswald, whom they regarded as rude and arrogant.
Although the Russian émigrés eventually abandoned Marina when she made no sign of leaving Lee, Oswald found an unlikely friend in 51-year-old Russian émigré George de Mohrenschildt, a well-educated petroleum geologist with international business connections (a native of Russia, de Mohrenschildt later was to tell the Warren Commission that Oswald had a "...remarkable fluency in Russian"). Marina, meanwhile, befriended Ruth Paine, a Quaker who was trying to learn Russian, and her husband Michael who worked for Bell Helicopter.
In July 1962, Oswald was hired by Dallas' Leslie Welding Company; he disliked the work and quit after three months. In October, he was hired by the graphic-arts firm of Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall as a photoprint trainee. A fellow employee at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall testified that Oswald's rudeness at his new job was such that fights threatened to break out, and that he once saw Oswald reading a Russian-language publication. Oswald was fired during the first week of April 1963. Some have suggested that Oswald might have used equipment at the firm to forge identification documents.
Edwin Walker assassination attempt
In March 1963, Oswald purchased a 6.5 mm caliber Carcano rifle by mail-order, using the alias "A. Hidell", as well as a .38 Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver by the same method.
The Warren Commission concluded that on April 10, 1963, Oswald attempted to kill retired U.S. Major General Edwin Walker, firing his rifle at Walker through a window, from less than 100 feet (30 m) away, as Walker sat at a desk in his home; the bullet struck the window-frame and Walker's only injuries were bullet fragments to the forearm. (The United States House Select Committee on Assassinations stated that the "evidence strongly suggested" that Oswald carried out the shooting.)
General Walker was an outspoken anti-communist, segregationist, and member of the John Birch Society. In 1961, Walker had been relieved of his command of the 24th Division of the U.S. Army in West Germany for distributing right-wing literature to his troops. Walker's later actions in opposition to racial integration at the University of Mississippi led to his arrest on insurrection, seditious conspiracy, and other charges. He was temporarily held in a mental institution on orders from President Kennedy's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, but a grand jury refused to indict him.
Marina Oswald testified that her husband told her that he traveled by bus to General Walker's house and shot at Walker with his rifle. She said that Oswald considered Walker to be the leader of a "fascist organization." A note Oswald left for Marina on the night of the attempt, telling her what to do if he did not return, was not found until ten days after the Kennedy assassination.
Before the Kennedy assassination, Dallas police had no suspects in the Walker shooting, but Oswald's involvement was suspected within hours of his arrest following the assassination. The Walker bullet was too damaged to run conclusive ballistics studies on it, but neutron activation analysis later showed that it was "extremely likely" that it was made by the same manufacturer and for the same rifle make as the two bullets which later struck Kennedy.
George de Mohrenschildt testified that he "knew that Oswald disliked General Walker." Regarding this, De Mohrenschildt and his wife Jeanne, recalled an incident that occurred the weekend following the Walker assassination attempt. The De Mohrenschildts testified that on April 14, 1963, just before Easter Sunday, they were visiting the Oswalds at their new apartment and had brought them a toy Easter bunny to give to their child. As Oswald's wife, Marina was showing Jeanne around the apartment, they discovered Oswald's rifle standing upright, leaning against the wall inside a closet. Jeanne told George that Oswald had a rifle, and George joked to Oswald, "Were you the one who took a pot-shot at General Walker?" When asked about Oswald's reaction to this question, George de Mohrenschildt told the Warren Commission that Oswald "smiled at that." When George's wife, Jeanne was asked about Oswald's reaction, she said, "I didn't notice anything"; she continued, "we started laughing our heads off, big joke, big George's joke." Jeanne de Mohrenschildt testified that this was the last time she or her husband ever saw the Oswalds.
New Orleans
Oswald returned to New Orleans on April 24, 1963. Marina's friend, Ruth Paine, drove her by car from Dallas to join Oswald in New Orleans the next month in May. On May 10, Oswald was hired by the Reily Coffee Company whose owner, William Reily, was a backer of the Crusade to Free Cuba Committee, an anti-Castro organization. Oswald worked as a machinery greaser at Reily, but he was fired in July "...because his work was not satisfactory and because he spent too much time loitering in Adrian Alba's garage next door, where he read rifle and hunting magazines."
On May 26, Oswald wrote to the New York City headquarters of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee, proposing to rent "a small office at my own expense for the purpose of forming a FPCC branch here in New Orleans." Three days later, the FPCC responded to Oswald's letter advising against opening a New Orleans office "at least not ..... at the very beginning." In a follow-up letter, Oswald replied, "Against your advice, I have decided to take an office from the very beginning."
As the sole member of the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, Oswald ordered the following items from a local printer: 500 application forms, 300 membership cards, and 1,000 leaflets with the heading, "Hands Off Cuba." According to Lee Oswald's wife Marina, Lee told her to sign the name "A.J. Hidell" as chapter president on his membership card.
On August 5 and 6, according to anti-Castro militant Carlos Bringuier, Oswald visited him at a store he owned in New Orleans. Bringuier was the New Orleans delegate for the anti-Castro organization Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil (DRE). Bringuier would later tell the Warren Commission that he believed Oswald's visits were an attempt by Oswald to infiltrate his group. On August 9, Oswald turned up in downtown New Orleans handing out pro-Castro leaflets. Bringuier confronted Oswald, claiming he was tipped off about Oswald's leafleting by a friend. A scuffle ensued and Oswald, Bringuier, and two of Bringuier's friends were arrested for disturbing the peace. Before leaving the police station, Oswald asked to speak with an FBI agent. Agent John Quigley arrived and spent over an hour talking to Oswald.
A week later, on August 16, Oswald again passed out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets with two hired helpers, this time in front of the International Trade Mart. The incident was filmed by WDSU, a local TV station. The next day, Oswald was interviewed by WDSU radio commentator William Stuckey, who probed Oswald's background. A few days later, Oswald accepted Stuckey's invitation to take part in a radio debate with Carlos Bringuier and Bringuier's associate Edward Scannell Butler, head of the right-wing Information Council of the Americas (INCA).
One of Oswald's Fair Play for Cuba leaflets had the address "544 Camp Street" hand-stamped on it, apparently by Oswald himself. The address was in the "Newman Building" which, from October 1961 to February 1962, housed a militant anti-Castro group, the Cuban Revolutionary Council. Around the corner but located in the same building, with a different entrance, was the address 531 Lafayette Street—the address of "Guy Banister Associates", a private detective agency run by former FBI agent Guy Banister. Banister's office was involved in anti-Castro and private investigative activities in the New Orleans area (a CIA file indicated that in September 1960, the CIA had considered "using Guy Banister Associates for the collection of foreign intelligence, but ultimately decided against it").
In the late 1970s, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) investigated the possible relationship of Oswald to Banister's office. While the committee was unable to interview Guy Banister (who died in 1964), the committee did interview his brother Ross Banister. Ross "told the committee that his brother had mentioned seeing Oswald hand out Fair Play for Cuba literature on one occasion. Ross theorized that Oswald had used the 544 Camp Street address on his literature to embarrass Guy."
Guy Banister's secretary, Delphine Roberts, told author Anthony Summers that she saw Oswald at Banister's office, and that he filled out one of Banister's "agent" application forms. She said, "Oswald came back a number of times. He seemed to be on familiar terms with Banister and with the office." The House Select Committee on Assassinations investigated Roberts' claims and said that "because of contradictions in Roberts' statements to the committee and lack of independent corroboration of many of her statements, the reliability of her statements could not be determined."
Oswald's 1963 New Orleans activities were later investigated by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, as part of his prosecution of Clay Shaw in 1967–1969. Garrison was particularly interested in an associate of Guy Banister—a man named David Ferrie and his possible connection to Oswald, which Ferrie himself denied. Ferrie died before Garrison could complete his investigation. Charged with conspiracy in the JFK assassination, Shaw was found not guilty.
The Warren Commission examined Oswald's involvement with a New Orleans Civil Air Patrol troop he briefly attended in 1955 with high school friend Edward Voebel. Several witnesses testified that David Ferrie was the Civil Air Patrol unit's commander during at least some of the time that Oswald attended C.A.P. meetings. However, the FBI interviewed Ferrie shortly after the assassination and concluded there was no relationship of significance in regards to Oswald. A more extensive investigation was done by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which interviewed several of Oswald's former fellow cadets and others, none of whom recalled Ferrie and Oswald interacting. These fellow cadets said that Oswald attended some 8 to 10 C.A.P. meetings over a two-month period. In 1993, the PBS television program Frontline obtained a photograph taken in 1955 showing Oswald and Ferrie at a C.A.P. cookout with other cadets.
Mexico
Marina's friend, Ruth Paine, transported Marina and her child by car from New Orleans to the Paine home in Irving, Texas, near Dallas, on September 23, 1963. Oswald stayed in New Orleans at least two more days to collect a $33 unemployment check. It is uncertain when he left New Orleans; he is next known to have boarded a bus in Houston on September 26—bound for the Mexican border, rather than Dallas—and to have told other bus passengers that he planned to travel to Cuba via Mexico. He arrived in Mexico City on September 27, where he applied for a transit visa at the Cuban Embassy, claiming he wanted to visit Cuba on his way to the Soviet Union. The Cuban embassy officials insisted Oswald would need Soviet approval, but he was unable to get prompt co-operation from the Soviet embassy.
After five days of shuttling between consulates—that included a heated argument with an official at the Cuban consulate, impassioned pleas to KGB agents, and at least some CIA scrutiny—Oswald was told by a Cuban consular officer that he was disinclined to approve the visa, saying "a person like in place of aiding the Cuban Revolution, was doing it harm." Later, on October 18, the Cuban embassy approved the visa, but by this time Oswald was back in the United States and had given up on his plans to visit Cuba and the Soviet Union. Still later, eleven days before the assassination of President Kennedy, Oswald wrote to the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., saying, "Had I been able to reach the Soviet Embassy in Havana, as planned, the embassy there would have had time to complete our business."
While the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had visited Mexico City and the Cuban and Soviet consulates, questions regarding whether someone posing as Oswald had appeared at the embassies were serious enough to be investigated by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Later, the Committee agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald had visited Mexico City and concluded that "the majority of evidence tends to indicate" that Oswald in fact visited the consulates, but the Committee could not rule out the possibility that someone else had used his name in visiting the consulates.
Return to Dallas
On October 2, 1963, Oswald left Mexico City by bus and arrived in Dallas the next day. Ruth Paine said that her neighbor told her, on October 14, that there was a job opening at the Texas School Book Depository, where her neighbor's brother, Wesley Frazier, worked. Mrs. Paine informed Oswald, who was interviewed at the Depository and was hired there on October 16. Oswald's supervisor, Roy Truly, said that Oswald "did a good day's work" and was an above-average employee. During the week, Oswald stayed in a Dallas rooming house (under the name "O.H. Lee"), but he spent his weekends with Marina at the Paine home in Irving. Oswald did not drive, but commuted to and from Dallas on Mondays and Fridays with his co-worker Wesley Frazier. On October 20, the Oswalds' second daughter, Audrey, was born.
FBI agents twice visited the Paine home in early November, when Oswald was not present, and spoke to Mrs. Paine. Oswald visited the Dallas FBI office about 2 to 3 weeks before the assassination, asking to see Special Agent James P. Hosty. When he was told that Hosty was unavailable, Oswald left a note that, according to the receptionist, read: "Let this be a warning. I will blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don't stop bothering my wife" "Lee Harvey Oswald." The note allegedly contained some sort of threat, but accounts vary as to whether Oswald threatened to "blow up the FBI" or merely "report this to higher authorities". According to Hosty, the note said, "If you have anything you want to learn about me, come talk to me directly. If you don't cease bothering my wife, I will take the appropriate action and report this to the proper authorities." Agent Hosty said that he destroyed Oswald's note on orders from his superior, Gordon Shanklin, after Oswald was named the suspect in the Kennedy assassination.
Kennedy and Tippit shootings
Main articles: Assassination of John F. Kennedy and Lone gunman theoryIn the days before Kennedy's arrival, several newspapers described the route of the presidential motorcade as passing the Book Depository. On November 21 (a Thursday) Oswald asked Frazier for an unusual mid-week lift back to Irving, saying he had to pick up some curtain rods. The next morning (Friday) he returned to Dallas with Frazier; he left behind $170 and his wedding ring, but took with him a paper bag. Frazier reported that Oswald told him the bag contained curtain rods, The evidence demonstrated that the package actually contained the rifle used by Oswald in the assassination.
Oswald's co-worker, Charles Givens, testified to the Commission that he last saw Oswald on the 6th floor of the TSBD at approximately 11:55 a.m.—35 minutes before the assassination. The Commission report stated that Oswald was not seen again "until after the shooting." However, in an FBI report taken the day after the assassination, Givens said that the encounter took place at 11:30 a.m. and that he later saw Oswald reading a newspaper on the first floor at 11:50 a.m. William Shelley, a foreman at the Depository, also testified that he saw Oswald on the first floor talking on the telephone between 11:45 and 11:50 a.m. Janitor Eddie Piper also testified that he spoke to Oswald on the first floor at 12:00 pm. Another co-worker, Bonnie Ray Williams, was on the sixth floor of the Depository eating his lunch and was there until at least 12:10 p.m. He said that during that time he did not see Oswald, or anyone else, on the sixth floor and felt he was the only one up there. However, he also said that some boxes in the southeast corner may have prevented him from seeing deep into the "sniper's nest." Carolyn Arnold, the secretary to the Vice President of the TSBD, informed the FBI that she caught a glimpse of a man whom she believed was Oswald on the first floor just prior to the assassination.
According to several government investigations, including the Warren Commission, as Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dallas's Dealey Plaza at about 12:30 p.m. on November 22, Oswald fired three rifle shots from the sixth-floor, southeast corner window of the Book Depository, killing the President and seriously wounding Texas Governor John Connally. Bystander James Tague received a minor facial injury from a small piece of curbstone that fragmented when struck by one of the bullets. According to the investigations, after shooting the President, Oswald hid and covered the rifle with boxes and descended using the rear stairwell. About ninety seconds after the shooting, in the second-floor lunchroom, Oswald encountered police officer Marrion Baker accompanied by Oswald's supervisor Roy Truly; Baker let Oswald pass after Truly identified him as an employee. According to Baker, Oswald did not appear to be nervous or out of breath. Truly said that Oswald appeared "startled" when Baker aimed his gun at him. Mrs. Robert Reid—clerical supervisor at the Depository, returning to her office within two minutes of the assassination—said that she saw Oswald who "was very calm" on the second floor with a Coke in his hands. As they walked past each other, Mrs. Reid said to Oswald, "The President has been shot" to which he mumbled something in response, but Reid did not understand him. Oswald is believed to have left the Depository through the front entrance just before police sealed it off. Oswald's supervisor, Roy Truly, later pointed out to officers that Oswald was the only employee that he was certain was missing.
At about 12:40 p.m., Oswald boarded a city bus but (probably due to heavy traffic) he requested a transfer from the bus driver and got off two blocks later. Oswald took a taxicab to his rooming house, at 1026 North Beckley Avenue, arriving at about 1:00 p.m. He entered through the front door and, according to his housekeeper Earlene Roberts, immediately went to his room, "walking pretty fast". Roberts said that Oswald left "a very few minutes" later, zipping up a jacket he was not wearing when he had entered earlier. As Oswald left, Roberts looked out of the window of her house and last saw him standing at the northbound Beckley Avenue bus stop in front of her house.
At approximately 1:15 p.m., the Warren Commission concluded, Dallas Patrolman J. D. Tippit drove up in his patrol car alongside Oswald, presumably because he resembled the police broadcast description of the man seen firing shots at the presidential motorcade, near the corner of East 10th Street and North Patton Avenue. (This location is about nine-tenths of a mile (1.4 km) southeast of Oswald's rooming house—a distance that the Warren Commission said, "Oswald could have easily walked".) Tippit pulled alongside Oswald and "apparently exchanged words with through the right front or vent window." "Shortly after 1:15 p.m.", Tippit exited his car and was immediately struck and killed by four shots. Numerous witnesses heard the shots and saw Oswald flee the scene holding a revolver; nine positively identified him as the man who shot Tippit and fled. Four cartridge cases found at the scene were identified by expert witnesses before the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee as having been fired from the revolver later found in Oswald's possession, to the exclusion of all other weapons. However, the bullets taken from Tippit's body could not be positively identified as having been fired from Oswald's revolver as the bullets were too extensively damaged to make conclusive assessments.
Capture
Shoe store manager Johnny Brewer testified that he saw Oswald "ducking into" the entrance alcove of his store. Suspicious of this activity, Brewer watched Oswald continue up the street and slip into the nearby Texas Theatre without paying. He alerted the theater's ticket clerk, who telephoned police at about 1:40 pm.
As police arrived, the house lights were brought up and Brewer pointed out Oswald sitting near the rear of the theater. Police Officer Nick McDonald testified that he was the first to reach Oswald and that Oswald seemed ready to surrender saying, "Well, it is all over now." However, Officer McDonald said that Oswald pulled out a pistol tucked into the front of his pants, then pointed the pistol at him, and pulled the trigger. McDonald stated that the pistol did not fire because the pistol's hammer came down on the webbing between the thumb and index finger of his hand as he grabbed for the pistol. McDonald also said that Oswald struck him, but that he struck back and Oswald was disarmed. As he was led from the theater, Oswald shouted he was a victim of police brutality.
At about 2 p.m., Oswald arrived at the Police Department building, where he was questioned by Detective Jim Leavelle about the shooting of Officer Tippit. When Captain J. W. Fritz heard Oswald's name, he recognized it as that of the Book Depository employee who was reported missing and was already a suspect in the assassination. Oswald was formally arraigned for the murder of Officer Tippit at 7:10 p.m., and by the end of the night (shortly after 1:30 a.m.) he had been arraigned for the murder of President Kennedy as well.
Soon after his capture Oswald encountered reporters in a hallway. Oswald declared, "I didn't shoot anybody" and, "They've taken me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union. I'm just a patsy!" Later, at an arranged press meeting, a reporter asked, "Did you kill the President?" and Oswald—who by that time had been advised of the charge of murdering Tippit, but had not yet been arraigned in Kennedy's death—answered, "No, I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question." As he was led from the room the question was called out, "What did you do in Russia?" and, "How did you hurt your eye?"; Oswald answered, "A policeman hit me."
Police interrogation
Oswald was interrogated several times during his two days at Dallas Police Headquarters. He admitted that he went to his rooming house after leaving the book depository. He also admitted that he changed his clothes and armed himself with a .38 revolver before leaving his house to go to the theater. However, Oswald denied killing Kennedy and Tippit; denied owning a rifle; said two photographs of him holding a rifle and a pistol were fakes; denied telling his co-worker he wanted a ride to Irving to get curtain rods for his apartment (he said that the package contained his lunch); and denied carrying a long, bulky package to work the morning of the assassination. Oswald also denied knowing an "A. J. Hidell". Oswald was then shown a forged Selective Service System card bearing his photograph and the alias, "Alek James Hidell" that he had in his possession at the time of his arrest. Oswald refused to answer any questions concerning the card, saying "...you have the card yourself and you know as much about it as I do."
The first interrogation of Oswald was conducted by FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty and Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz on Friday, November 22. Asked to account for himself at the time of the assassination, Oswald replied that he was eating his lunch in the first floor lounge (known as the "domino room"). He said that he then went to the second-floor lunchroom to buy a Coca-Cola from the soda machine and was drinking it when he encountered a police officer. Oswald said that while he was in the domino room, he saw two "Negro employees" walking by, one he recognized as "Junior" and a shorter man whose name he could not recall. Junior Jarman and Harold Norman confirmed to the Warren Commission that they had "walked through" the domino room around noon during their lunch break. When asked if anyone else was in the domino room, Norman testified that somebody else was there, but he could not remember who it was. Jarman testified that Oswald was not in the domino room when he was there. During his last interrogation on November 24, according to postal inspector Harry Holmes, Oswald was again asked where he was at the time of the shooting. Holmes (who attended the interrogation at the invitation of Captain Will Fritz) said that Oswald replied that he was working on an upper floor when the shooting occurred, then went downstairs where he encountered a policeman.
Oswald asked for legal representation several times while being interrogated, as well as in encounters with reporters. But when representatives of the Dallas Bar Association met with him in his cell on Saturday, he declined their services, saying he wanted to be represented by John Abt, chief counsel to the Communist Party USA, or by lawyers associated with the American Civil Liberties Union. Both Oswald and Ruth Paine tried to reach Abt by telephone several times Saturday and Sunday, but Abt was away for the weekend. Oswald also declined his brother Robert's offer on Saturday to obtain a local attorney.
During an interrogation with Captain Fritz, when asked, "Are you a communist?", he replied, "No, I am not a communist. I am a Marxist."
Death
See also: Jack RubyOn Sunday, November 24, Oswald was being led through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters in advance of his transfer to the county jail. At 11:21 a.m., Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby stepped from the crowd and shot Oswald in the chest, the bullet striking several organs, penetrating his stomach, and tearing his vena cava and aorta. Oswald was rushed unconscious to Parkland Memorial Hospital—the same hospital where doctors tried to save President Kennedy's life two days earlier. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m. An autopsy was performed by the Dallas County Medical Examiner at 2:45 p.m. the same day. The stated cause of death in the autopsy report was "hemorrhage secondary to gunshot wound of the chest."
A network television camera, there to cover the transfer, was broadcasting live, and millions witnessed the shooting on television as it happened. The event was also captured in several well-known photographs.
Ruby's motive
Ruby later said he had been distraught over Kennedy's death and that his motive for killing Oswald was "...saving Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial." Others have hypothesized that Ruby was part of a conspiracy. G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations from 1977 to 1979, said: "The most plausible explanation for the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby was that Ruby had stalked him on behalf of organized crime, trying to reach him on at least three occasions in the forty-eight hours before he silenced him forever."
Burial
Oswald was buried on November 25 in Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Burial Park in Fort Worth. Reporters present to report on the burial were asked by officials to act as pallbearers. A marker inscribed simply Oswald replaces the stolen original tombstone, which gave Oswald's full name, and birth and death dates. His mother was buried beside him in 1981.
A claim that a look-alike Russian agent was buried in place of Oswald led to his exhumation on October 4, 1981. Dental records confirmed that it was Oswald's body in the grave and he was reburied in a new coffin. In 2010, his original coffin was sold at auction for $87,468.
Official investigations
Warren Commission
The Warren Commission, created by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination, concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy (this view is known as the lone gunman theory). The Commission could not ascribe any one motive or group of motives to Oswald's actions:
It is apparent, however, that Oswald was moved by an overriding hostility to his environment. He does not appear to have been able to establish meaningful relationships with other people. He was perpetually discontented with the world around him. Long before the assassination he expressed his hatred for American society and acted in protest against it. Oswald's search for what he conceived to be the perfect society was doomed from the start. He sought for himself a place in history—a role as the "great man" who would be recognized as having been in advance of his times. His commitment to Marxism and communism appears to have been another important factor in his motivation. He also had demonstrated a capacity to act decisively and without regard to the consequences when such action would further his aims of the moment. Out of these and the many other factors which may have molded the character of Lee Harvey Oswald there emerged a man capable of assassinating President Kennedy.
The proceedings of the commission were closed, though not secret, and about 3% of its files have yet to be released to the public, which has continued to provoke speculation among researchers.
Ramsey Clark Panel
In 1968, the Ramsey Clark Panel examined various photographs, X-ray films, documents, and other evidence, concluding that Kennedy was struck by two bullets fired from above and behind him, one of which traversed the base of the neck on the right side without striking bone, and the other of which entered the skull from behind and destroyed its right side.
House Select Committee
Main article: United States House Select Committee on Assassinations Further information: Dictabelt evidence relating to the assassination of John F. KennedyIn 1979, after a review of the evidence and of prior investigations, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) largely concurred with the Warren Commission and was preparing to issue a finding that Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy. However, late in the Committee's proceedings a dictabelt recording was introduced, purportedly recording sounds heard in Dealey Plaza before, during and after the shots were fired. After an analysis by the firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman appeared to indicate more than three gunshots, the HSCA revised its findings to assert a "high probability that two gunmen fired" at Kennedy and that Kennedy "was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy." Although the Committee was "unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy," it made a number of further findings regarding the likelihood or unlikelihood that particular groups, named in the findings, were involved. Four of the twelve members of the HSCA dissented from this conclusion.
The acoustical evidence has since been discredited. Officer H.B. McLain, from whose motorcycle radio the HSCA acoustic experts said the Dictabelt evidence came, has repeatedly stated that he was not yet in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. McLain asked the Committee, "‘If it was my radio on my motorcycle, why did it not record the revving up at high speed plus my siren when we immediately took off for Parkland Hospital?’”
In 1982, a panel of twelve scientists appointed by the National Academy of Sciences, including Nobel laureates Norman Ramsey and Luis Alvarez, unanimously concluded that the acoustic evidence submitted to the HSCA was "seriously flawed", was recorded after the President had been shot, and did not indicate additional gunshots. Their conclusions were later published in the journal Science.
In a 2001 article in the journal Science & Justice, D.B. Thomas wrote that the NAS investigation was itself flawed. He concluded with a 96.3 percent certainty that there were at least two gunmen firing at President Kennedy and that at least one shot came from the grassy knoll. In 2005, Thomas' conclusions were rebutted in the same journal. Ralph Linsker and several members of the original NAS team reanalyzed the timings of the recordings and reaffirmed the earlier conclusion of the NAS report that the alleged shot sounds were recorded approximately one minute after the assassination. In 2010, D.B. Thomas challenged in a book the 2005 Science & Justice article and restated his conclusion that there were at least two gunmen.
Other investigations and dissenting theories
Main article: John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theoriesSome critics have not accepted the conclusions of the Warren Commission and have proposed several other theories, such as that Oswald conspired with others, or was not involved at all and was framed.
In October 1981, with Marina's support, Oswald's grave was opened to test a theory propounded by writer Michael Eddowes: that during Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union he was replaced with a Soviet double; that it was this double, not Oswald, who killed Kennedy and who is buried in Oswald's grave; and that the exhumed remains would therefore not exhibit a surgical scar Oswald was known to carry. Dental records positively identified the exhumed corpse as Oswald's, and the scar was present.
Public opinion
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A 2003 Gallup poll reported that 75% of Americans do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy. That same year an ABC News poll found that 70% of respondents suspected that the assassination involved more than one person. A 2004 Fox News poll found that 66% of Americans thought there had been a conspiracy while 74% thought there had been a cover-up. A Gallup Poll in mid-November 2013, showed 61% believed in a conspiracy, and only 30% thought Oswald did it alone.
Fictional trials
Several films have fictionalized a trial of Oswald. The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald (1964); The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald (1977); and On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald (1986) have fictionalized a trial of Oswald. In 1988, a 21-hour unscripted mock trial was held on television, argued by lawyers before a judge, with unscripted testimony from surviving witnesses to the events surrounding the assassination; the jury returned a verdict of guilty.
Backyard photos
Main article: John F. Kennedy assassination rifleThe "backyard photos", taken by Marina Oswald probably around March 31, 1963 using a camera belonging to Oswald, show Oswald holding two Marxist newspapers—The Militant and The Worker—and a rifle, and wearing a pistol in a holster. Shown the pictures after his arrest, Oswald insisted they were forgeries, but Marina testified in 1964 that she had taken the photographs at Oswald's request— testimony she reaffirmed repeatedly over the decades. These photos were labelled CE 133-A and CE 133-B. CE 133-A shows the rifle in Oswald's left hand and newspapers in front of his chest in the other, while the rifle is held with the right hand in CE 133-B. Oswald's mother testified that on the day after the assassination she and Marina destroyed another photograph with Oswald holding the rifle with both hands over his head, with "To my daughter June" written on it.
The HSCA obtained another first-generation print (from CE 133-A) on April 1, 1977, from the widow of George de Mohrenschildt. The words "Hunter of fascists—ha ha ha!" written in block Russian were on the back. Also in English were added in script: "To my friend George, Lee Oswald, 5/IV/63 ." Handwriting experts for the HSCA concluded the English inscription and signature were by Oswald. After two original photos, one negative and one first-generation copy had been found, the Senate Intelligence Committee located (in 1976) a third backyard photo (CE 133-C) showing Oswald with newspapers held away from his body in his right hand.
These photos, widely recognized as some of the most significant evidence against Oswald, have been subjected to rigorous analysis. Photographic experts consulted by the HSCA concluded they were genuine, answering twenty-one points raised by critics. Marina Oswald has always maintained she took the photos herself, and the 1963 de Mohrenschildt print bearing Oswald's signature clearly indicate they existed before the assassination. Nonetheless, some continue to contest their authenticity. In 2009, after digitally analyzing the photograph of Oswald holding the rifle and paper, computer scientist Hany Farid concluded that the photo "almost certainly was not altered."
See also
Portal:Notes
- Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 22, p. 705, CE 1385, Notes of interview of Lee Harvey Oswald conducted by Aline Mosby in Moscow in November 1959. Oswald: "When I was working in the middle of the night on guard duty, I would think how long it would be and how much money I would have to save. It would be like being out of prison. I saved about $1500." During Oswald's 2 years and 10 months of service in the Marine Corps he received $3,452.20, after all taxes, allotments and other deductions as well as his GED. Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 26, p. 709, CE 3099, Certified military pay records for Lee Harvey Oswald for the period October 24, 1956, to September 11, 1959.
- Though later reports described her uncle, with whom she was living, as a colonel in the KGB, he was a lumber industry expert in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) with a bureaucratic rank of Polkovnik. Priscilla Johnson McMillan, Marina and Lee, Harper & Row, 1977, pp. 64–65. ISBN 978-0-06-012953-8.
- Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 11, p. 123, Affidavit of Alexander Kleinlerer: "Anna Meller, Mrs. Hall, George Bouhe, and the deMohrenschildts, and all that group had pity for Marina and her child. None of us cared for Oswald because of his political philosophy, his criticism of the United States, his apparent lack of interest in anyone but himself, and because of his treatment of Marina."
- Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Dennis Hyman Ofstein: 'I would say he didn't get along with people and that several people had words with him at times about the way he barged around the plant, and one of the fellows back in the photosetter department almost got in a fight with him one day, and I believe it was Mr. Graef that stepped in and broke it up before it got started...'
- United States House Select Committee on Assassinations,
Testimony of Dr. Vincent P. Guinn:
- Mr. WOLF. In your professional opinion, Dr. Guinn, is the fragment removed from General Walker's house a fragment from a WCC (Western Cartridge Company) Mannlicher-Carcano bullet?
- Dr. GUINN. I would say that it is extremely likely that it is, because there are very few, very few other ammunitions that would be in this range. I don't know of any that are specifically this close as these numbers indicate, but somewhere near them there are a few others, but essentially this is in the range that is rather characteristic of WCC Mannlicher-Carcano bullet lead.
- Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of Charles Givens.
- The first report of Tippit's shooting was transmitted over Police Channel 1 some time between 1:16 and 1:19 p.m., as indicated by verbal time stamps made periodically by the dispatcher. Specifically, the first report began 1 minute 41 seconds after the 1:16 time stamp. Before that, witness Domingo Benavides could be heard unsuccessfully trying to use Tippit's police radio microphone, beginning at 1:16. Dale K. Myers, With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit, 1998, p. 384. ISBN 0-9662709-7-5.
- By the evening of November 22, five of them (Helen Markham, Barbara Jeanette Davis, Virginia Davis, Ted Callaway, Sam Guinyard) had identified Lee Harvey Oswald in police lineups as the man they saw. A sixth (William Scoggins) did so the next day. Three others (Harold Russell, Pat Patterson, Warren Reynolds) subsequently identified Oswald from a photograph. Two witnesses (Domingo Benavides, William Arthur Smith) testified that Oswald resembled the man they had seen. One witness (L.J. Lewis) felt he was too distant from the gunman to make a positive identification. Warren Commission Hearings, CE 1968, Location of Eyewitnesses to the Movements of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Vicinity of the Tippit Killing.
- "Two misconceptions about the Warren Commission hearing need to be clarified...hearings were closed to the public unless the witness appearing before the Commission requested an open hearing. No witness except one...requested an open hearing...Second, although the hearings (except one) were conducted in private, they were not secret. In a secret hearing, the witness is instructed not to disclose his testimony to any third party, and the hearing testimony is not published for public consumption. The witnesses who appeared before the Commission were free to repeat what they said to anyone they pleased, and all of their testimony was subsequently published in the first fifteen volumes put out by the Warren Commission." (Bugliosi, p. 332)
- W. Tracy Parnell, The Exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald. Contrary to reports, the skull of Oswald had been autopsied and this was also confirmed at the exhumation. W. Tracy Parnell, My Interview With Dr. Vincent J.M. Di Maio.
-
- Testimony of Marina Oswald Porter, Trial of Clay Shaw, Criminal District Court, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, February 21, 1969.
- United States House Select Committee on Assassinations, Deposition of Marina Oswald Porter (1977):
- Q. I want to mark these two photographs. On the back of the first one, which I would ask be marked JFK committee exhibit No. 1, it says in the bottom right-hand corner copy from the National Archives, records group No. 272, under that it says CE-133B. I will ask that be marked JFK exhibit No. 1. (The above referred to photograph was marked JFK committee exhibit No. 1 for identification.)
- Q. New, this second picture that I will ask to be marked says copy from the National Archives, record group No. 272, CE-133. I would ask that this be marked JFK committee exhibit No. 2. (The above referred to photograph was marked JFK committee exhibit No. 2 for identification.)
- By Mr. KLEIN:
- Q. I will show you those two photographs which are marked JFK exhibit No. 1 and exhibit No. 2, do you recognize those two photographs?
- A. I sure do. I have seen them many times.
- Q. What are they?
- A. That is the pictures that I took.
- United States House Select Committee on Assassinations, Hearings, vol. 2 p. 239, Testimony of Marina Oswald Porter (1978):
- Mr. McDONALD. Mrs. Porter, I have got two exhibits to show you, if the clerk would procure them from the representatives of the National Archives. We have two photographs to show you. They are Warren Commission Exhibits C-133-A and B, which have been given JFK Nos. F-378 and F-379. If the clerk would please hand them to you, and also if we could now have for display purposes JFK Exhibit F-179, which is a blowup of the two photographs placed in front of you. Mrs. Porter, do you recognize the photographs placed in front of you?
- Mrs. PORTER. Yes, I do.
- Mr. McDONALD. And how do you recognize them?
- Mrs. PORTER. That is the photograph that I made of Lee on his persistent request of taking a picture of him dressed like that with rifle.
- Marina Oswald Porter, interview with author Vincent Bugliosi and lawyer Jack Duffy, Dallas, Texas, November 30, 2000, reported in Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, p. 794.
References
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- Warren Commission Hearings, Testimony of M. N. McDonald.
- . Brewer and McDonald testify on film to a reporter at the sites of the shoe store and inside the Texas Theater.
- "Oswald and Officer McDonald:The Arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald". Retrieved 2011-06-21.
- Copy of an undated statement made by Richard M. Sims and E. L. Boyd concerning the events surrounding the assassination, 21 H 512–514.
- Testimony of J.W. Fritz, 4 H 206.
- Warren Commission Report, Chapter 5: Detention and Death of Oswald, Chronology. p. 198.
- Tippit murder affidavit: text, cover. Kennedy murder affidavit: text, cover.
- Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 20, p. 366, Kantor Exhibit No. 3—Handwritten notes made by Seth Kantor concerning events surrounding the assassination.
- Lee Oswald claiming innocence (film), YouTube.com.
- Lee Oswald's Midnight Press Conference, YouTube.com.
- "Photo of the order slip and order envelope for the alleged murder weapon". History-matters.com. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
- CE 697 shows "A. J. Hidell" as alternate name on Oswald New Orleans P.O. Box
- This box had been rented by Oswald in Dallas under his own name of Oswald, but postal inspector Harry Holmes of the Dallas Post office testified that a notice of receipt for any package would have been left in a Dallas P.O. box, no matter who the listed-recipient for the package was, and thereafter anyone presenting the notice for the package to the office window, demonstrating they had access to the box, would have been able to receive any package for the box, without identification. See http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0073a.htm Warren Report p. 121 of 912.
- Summers, Anthony. Not in Your Lifetime, (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1998), p. 66. ISBN 1-56924-739-0
- Warren Commission Report, pp. 180–182.
- vol. XVII of the Warren report with facsimile of card (CE 795) with Commission notation: "A spurious Selective Service System notice of classification card in the name "Alek James Hidell." See for the card (illustrated at right)
- Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 4, Testimony of James P. Hosty, Jr., pp. 467–468
- Testimony of Capt. J.W. Fritz, pp. 213–214 Commission Exhibit 2003
- Dallas Police Department file on investigation of the assassination of the President, "Interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald", vol. 4, p. 265.
- FBI Report of Capt. J.W. Fritz, Warren Report, appendix 11, p. 600.
- "Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 2013-02-05.
- "Warren Commission Hearings, Volume III". History Matters Archive. Retrieved 2013-02-05.
- Summers 1998, p. 59.
- Testimony of Harry D. Holmes, Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 7, pp. 297-302.
- Testimony of H. Louis Nichols, 7 H 328–329.
- Testimony of Harry D. Holmes, 7 H 299–300.
- Jesse E. Curry, Retired Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry Reveals His Personal JFK Assassination File, Self-published, 1969, p. 74, affidavit of Dallas police officer Thurber T. Lord on August 20, 1964.
- Testimony of Ruth Hyde Paine, 3 H 88–89.
- Testimony of John J. Abt, 10 H 116.
- Robert L. Oswald, Lee: A Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald by His Brother, Coward–McCann, 1967, p. 145.
- Bugliosi, Vincent (2008) Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy pp.416-7, quote: "No, I am not a Communist," Oswald says. "I am a Marxist, but not a Marxist-Leninist. "Well, a Communist is a Leninist-Marxist," Oswald explains, "while I am a true Karl Marxist. I've read just about everything by or about Karl Marx."
- Smith, Jeffrey K. (2008) Rendezvous in Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy pp.239-40, quote: No, I am not a Communist. I am a Marxist, but not a Marxist-Leninist. Well, a Communist is a Leninist-Marxist, while I am a true Karl Marxist. I've read just about everything by or about Karl Marx.
- Kelley Exhibit A, 20 H 443; CE 2064, 24 H 490; 7 H 298, WCT Harry D. Holmes
- ^ The Nook: An Investigation of the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Official Autopsy Report of Lee Harvey Oswald, November 24, 1963. Accessed 2013-01-09. Cite error: The named reference "autopsy" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- Bergreen, Laurence (1980). Look Now, Pay Later: The Rise of Network Broadcasting. New York: Doubleday and Company. ISBN 978-0-451-61966-2.
- Testimony of Jack Ruby, Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 5, pp. 198–200.
- Goldfarb, Ronald (1995). Perfect Villains, Imperfect Heroes: Robert F. Kennedy's War Against Organized Crime. Virginia: Capital Books. p. 281. ISBN 1-931868-06-9.
- Directions to Lee Harvey Oswald's Grave at Kennedy Assassination Home Page
- "Photos of Gravesite". Findagrave.com. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
- Lee Harvey Oswald pallbearer recalls the weather and widow The Salt Lake Tribune, 2013-11-21.
- "Who was Lee Harvey Oswald?—A chronology of Lee Harvey Oswald's life". Pbs.org. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
- "Lee Harvey Oswald Casket Consignment". Natedsanders.com. Retrieved 2012-03-24.
- Warren Commission Report, Chapter 7: Unanswered Questions.
- 1968 Panel Review of Photographs, X-Ray Films, Documents and Other Evidence Pertaining to the Fatal Wounding of President John E Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas (.txt) at Kennedy Assassination Home Page
- ^ Bugliosi, Reclaiming History, p.376
- Findings of the Select Committee on Assassinations HSCA Final Report, pp. 3.
- Cite error: The named reference
Bugliosi, p.377
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - Ballard C. Campbell (2008). Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History: A Reference Guide to the Nation's Most Catastrophic Events. Infobase Publishing. p. 1936. ISBN 978-1-4381-3012-5. Retrieved 2013-09-01.
- Holland, Max (1994). "After Thirty Years: Making Sense of the Assassination". Reviews in American History. 22 (2): 191–209.
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ignored (help) - Martin, John (2011). "The Assassination of John F. Kennedy – 48 Years On". Irish Foreign Affairs.
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ignored (help) - Peter Knight (2007). The Kennedy Assassination. University Press of Mississippi. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-934110-32-4. Retrieved 2013-09-04.
- Kathryn S. Olmsted (March 11, 2011). Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11. Oxford University Press. pp. 169–170. ISBN 978-0-19-975395-6. Retrieved 2013-09-04.
- Testimony of Mark Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy, 5 HSCA 617.
- G. Robert Blakey and Richard N. Billings, The Plot to Kill the President, Times Books, 1981, p. 103. ISBN 978-0-8129-0929-6.
- Greg Jaynes, The Scene of the Crime, Afterward.
- "Separate Views of Hons. Samuel L. Devine and Robert W. Edgar", HSCA Report, pp. 492–493.
- "Report of the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics". Nap.edu. Retrieved 2012-12-24.
- Committee on Ballistic Acoustics, National Research Council (1982). "Reexamination of Acoustic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination". Science. 218 (8): 127–133.
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ignored (help) - Donald B. Thomas, "Echo Correlation Analysis and the Acoustic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination Revisited", Science & Justice, vol. 41(1), 2001, pp. 21-32, Retrieved 2010-04-10
- Linsker R., Garwin R.L., Chernoff H., Horowitz P., Ramsey N.F., "Synchronization of the acoustic evidence in the assassination of President Kennedy". Science & Justice, vol. 45(4), 2005, pp. 207–226.
- Donald Byron Thomas (2010). "Hear No Evil: Social Constructivism and the Forensic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination". ISBN 0980121396.
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(help) - Lydia Saad (November 21, 2003). "Americans: Kennedy Assassination a Conspiracy". Gallup, Inc.
- Gary Langer (November 16, 2003). "John F. Kennedy's Assassination Leaves a Legacy of Suspicion" (PDF). ABC News. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
- Dana Blanton (June 18, 2004). "Poll: Most Believe 'Cover-Up' of JFK Assassination Facts". Fox News.
- "Majority in U.S. Still Believe JFK Killed in a Conspiracy: Mafia, federal government top list of potential conspirators". Gallup, Inc. November 15, 2013.
- Bugliosi, Reclaiming History
- Warren Commission Report, Chapter 4: The Assassin, Photograph of Oswald With Rifle
- Warren Commission Report, Chapter 4: The Assassin, Denial of Rifle Ownership.
- Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 1, p. 15, Testimony of Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald.
- Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 1, p. 146, Testimony of Mrs. Marguerite Oswald.
- HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. 6, p. 151, Figure IV-21.
- HSCA Appendix to Hearings, vol. 6, "The Oswald Backyard Photographs".
- "id". Retrieved 2009-02-27.
- "United States House Select Committee on Assassinations Report Chapter VI". Retrieved 2009-02-27.
- United States House Select Committee on Assassinations, Hearings, Testimony of Jack D. White.
- Farid, H (2009). "The Lee Harvey Oswald backyard photos: real or fake?". Perception. 38 (11): 1731–1734. doi:10.1068/p6580. PMID 20120271.
- "Dartmouth Professor finds that iconic Oswald photo was not faked". November 5, 2009. Retrieved 2011-11-14.
Further reading
- Ford, Gerald. Portrait of the Assassin. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965, ISBN 0-684-82663-1.
- Groden, Robert. The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald: A Comprehensive Photographic Record. New York: Penguin Books, 1995, ISBN 978-0-670-85867-5.
- Joesten, Joachim. Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy. Marsani/Munsell, 1964, paperback.
- Krusch, Barry. Impossible: The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald. ICI Press, 2012, ASIN: B007TBWQ3W
- Mailer, Norman. Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery. New York: Ballantine Books, (1995) ISBN 0-345-40437-8.
- Nechiporenko, Oleg M. Passport to Assassination: The Never-Before Told Story of Lee Harvey Oswald by the KGB Colonel Who Knew Him. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1993, ISBN 1-55972-210-X.
External links
- Frontline: Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?
- American Experience: Oswald's Ghost
- Lee Harvey Oswald's journey from Minsk to the US, travelling through Holland by Perry Vermeulen
- Kennedy Assassination Home Page by John McAdams
- Lee Harvey Oswald: Lone Assassin or Patsy
- Lee Harvey Oswald Chronology
- Crime Library: Lee Harvey Oswald
- Lee Harvey Oswald In Russia
- Various photos of Oswald taken post mortem
- A Study of Lee Harvey Oswald: Psychological Capability of Murder, Bull N Y Acad Med. 1967 October; 43(10): 861–888.
- Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, Appendix 13: Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald
- Lee Harvey Oswald at IMDb
- Lee Harvey Oswald at Find a Grave
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